Company History

     McNelly-Whaley Motor Company's future is driven by it's 60 year heritage.  The company, the oldest auto dealership in Sevier County, was founded in 1942 by a mechanic and a banker who joined forces not only in business partners but as family members.

     Horace McNelly was an auto mechanic who came to Sevierville in 1912 to string telephone lines in the town.  His daughter Margaret, caught the eye of Knoxville banker, Minyard Whaley, who worked in the auto loans department of the Morris Plan Bank of Knoxville.  Margaret and Minyard Whaley married in the 1930's.  A few years later Minyard Whaley and his father-in-law decided to capitalize on there expertise in the car repair and banking, and open a Chrysler dealership in downtown Sevierville.

     The partners sold the Chrysler dealership in 1957 and opened a Ford franchise that same year.  Horace McNelly died six years later, leaving Minyard Whaley as president.  In 1966, son-in-law Lynn Webb joined the family business as a manager, eventually taking over the helm as president in 1976.

     The dealership's first renovation occurred in 1968 when the company moved from the downtown location to a new facility about a mile away on what is now known as Dolly Parton Parkway.  Sevierville was a sleepy country stop on the way to Gatlinburg then, and the staff wondered whether customers would go out of their way to come "way out" there.  Only a mile away, "we thought we were 50 miles out in the country," Lynn Webb said.

     The pace of the auto industry was slower then, Cars, not SUV's dotted the landscape.  In the 1960 and 1970's a staff of twenty handled all sales and service, and it wasn't unusual for a salesman to do a little work in the body shop or mechanics to know their way around the showroom.

     While Lynn Webb still serves as president of the company, he next generation has rallied to invest their lives in the heritage of McNelly-Whaley Motor Company.  Sons, Seth and Daniel Webb begain taking the reins, in 1997, to lead the company into the next Millennium.

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